My commentary on Shroud of Turin related matters. I am an Australian evangelical Christian in my 70s. I am persuaded by the evidence that the Shroud of Turin is the burial sheet of Jesus Christ and bears His crucified and resurrected image.

Tuesday, May 9, 2017

"Editorial and Contents," Shroud of Turin News, April 2017

This is the "Editorial and Contents," part #1 of the April 2017 issue of my Shroud of Turin News. Following this editorial, I may comment on Shroud-related April 2017 news articles in separate posts, linked back to this post, with the articles' words in bold to distinguish them from mine. From now on I am going to list some linked articles about the Shroud as a service to readers, without necessarily commenting on them. If I do comment on an article in a separate post, I will add after it "- see Month year, part #n".

"... there are considerations and error potential when an item is contaminated with newer material ... It is ... very likely, that the Shroud is much, much older than the carbon dating, because of the affects of the much higher C14 content of the backing and patches."

In my reply via a separate post, "`Radiocarbon Dating ... error potential when an item is contaminated with newer material'," I made the following points: ■ Contamination with younger carbon which cannot be removed by pre-treatment ... would have explained why the 1st-century Shroud did not have a 1st-century, but an early century (e.g. 4th-5th century) radiocarbon date, if the Shroud samples had been radiocarbon-dated in 1988. ■ But they were not and instead the 1260-1390 radiocarbon date of the Shroud was the result of a computer hacking. ■ Contamination with younger carbon cannot plausibly explain why the 1st century Shroud has a 13th-14th century radiocarbon date. Because that would require a level of contamination sufficient to shift the Shroud's radiocarbon date 12-13 centuries into the future. And to do that would require the Shroud sample to have been 60% or more contamination! That also applies to the invisible repair/patch theories. See my "Conventional explanations of the discrepancy all fail." ■ But that is obviously not the case with the Shroud, as such a huge level of contamination would be clearly visible, but isn't. See the photomicrograph [Right (enlarge)], taken by pro-authenticist photographer Barrie Schwortz, of a piece of Arizona laboratory's original Shroud sample that was never dated. As can be seen, the Arizona sub-sample is not mostly contamination. Oxford estimated that their sample (which was cut from the same larger sample as Arizona's), was less than 0.1% contamination. ■ The evidence (apart from the radiocarbon dating) is overwhelming that the Shroud is authentic and therefore first-century or earlier. However pro-authenticist arguments that rely on contamination, invisible repair patching, neutron flux, etc, all fail (see above) because they accept the 1260-1390 = 1325 ± 65 years radiocarbon date of the Shroud as correct and then try reconcile that with the Shroud’s 1st century date. ■ But as the pro-authenticist physicist Frank Tipler pointed out, it would be a "miracle" (he believes it was!) for the 1st century Shroud to have precisely the right level of contamination to shift the Shroud’s radiocarbon date to 1260-1390 = 1325 ±65 years, a mere ~30 years before the Shroud first appeared in undisputed history at Lirey, France in c.1355 ■ But that would make God a deceiver! Few, if any, pro-authenticists would accept Tipler's deceiver-God reconciliation of the 1st century Shroud with its 1260-1390 = 1325 ±65 years radiocarbon date. But that is implicit in all pro-authenticist explanations which accept the 1260-1390 = 1325 ±65 years radiocarbon date of the Shroud and then try to reconcile that to the Shroud's actual 1st century date, by contamination, invisible repairs, neutron flux, etc. ■ The laboratories have stated that the improbability of the Shroud being 1st century yet having a 1260-1390 a radiocarbon date is "astronomical" (Tite), "one in a thousand trillion" (Gove), and "totally impossible" (Hall-his emphasis). ■ But since the Shroud is authentic, and therefore 1st century or earlier, the improbability that it has a 1260-1390 a radiocarbon date must be "astronomical," "one in a thousand trillion" and indeed "totally impossible"! ■ The only viable explanation that fits all the facts is that the fully computerised AMS radiocarbon dating of the 1st century Shroud as "mediaeval ... AD 1260-1390" is that it was the result of a computer hacking! Remember:

progressively post it here on my blog in parallel. At this early stage I intend to make the first edition of the book available as a free PDF, and then later self-publish an expanded second edition at a minimal price. My aim is for the book to have the widest possible distribution. I was not going to mention my book here again until it is finished (or abandoned - Lk 14:28-30!), but on second thoughts it would help its eventual distribution if I gave brief progress reports here in my Editorials.

Notes:1. This post is copyright. I grant permission to extract or quote from any part of it (but not the whole post), provided the extract or quote includes a reference citing my name, its title, its date, and a hyperlink back to this page. [return]

My policies

Comments are moderated. Those I consider off-topic, offensive or sub-standard will not appear. Except that comments under my latest post can be on any one Shroud-related topic without being off-topic. I reserve the right to respond to any comment as a separate blog post.

Debates After over a decade (1994-2005) debating creation/ evolution/ design on Internet discussion groups, I concluded that Internet debates were largely a waste of time, so I ceased debating and started blogging. Therefore I normally allow only one comment per individual under each one of my posts.

Private messages I receive on Shroud of Turin related topics, I reserve the right to respond publicly via this blog, quoting the message or email, minus the senders' personal identifying information, unless that is self-evident.